Field Trip! You + Intuit

by Julie Anixter

See Intuit For Real at Back End of Innovation, Nov 19, 2013

It’s all too rare that we get to go behind the scenes, witness and experience what makes a company that is SYNONYMOUS with innovation tick, especially one that has been doing it continuously for thirty years. As a strategic partner to the Back End of Innovation (BEI) conference, we are happy to be giving the IX community early notice that BEI is including on-site experiential learning in the form of (#BEI13) Field Trips to three innovation powerhouses (Intuit, Xerox Parc andPayPal.) The first, Intuit, will be held on November 19, on Intuit’s corporate campus in Santa Clara, and led by Suzanne Pellican, who has one of the better titles I’ve seen of late – Director, Design for Delight and Innovation Catalysts.

In Their Own Words…

Intuit on Innovation:“Innovation at Intuit is systematic. Yet we afford our employees the autonomy to tap into their own passions to delight customers and grow the company. Innovation at Intuit is the intersection of customer, technology and business insights. We encourage our employees to know our customers – watch them, listen to them, visit their homes and workplaces – so they can discover and solve important customer problems.”

10% of Employee Time for Exploration/Experimentation

“Our secret sauce for innovation is Design for Delight (D4D), our way of looking at design thinking. We also nurture our employees to be innovators through a grassroots environment that taps into their passions and lets them spend 10% of their time exploring and experimenting on their ideas. We call this Unstructured Time.”

Applicability to Your Organization and Business

Can you say that about your business with a straight face? It sounds simple and straightforward. But as we all know, implementing it is something else entirely. And that’s why we’re heading to Intuit – to see, feel and experience an environment that’s fully committed to implementing ideas and creating a persistent innovation culture.

A Little Background

For 30 years Intuit has been simplifying the way people manage money, a rather profound ‘job to be done.’ Products like Quicken, TurboTax, QuickBooks, and Mint get those jobs done for people at home and at work. All of these software products are developed by Intuit Labs, which has a point of view about how to fuel and innovation pipeline.

They started small in 1983 with Quicken personal finance software, simplifying a common household dilemma: balancing the family checkbook. Today, they’ve served the lives of more than 50 million people, and have annual revenue approaching $4 billion. They’re publicly traded with the symbol INTU on theNasdaq Stock Market, and regularly recognized as one of the best places to work in locations around the world.

The BEI13 Field Trips are about making Intuit’s innovation style visible.

Intuit is one of the companies innovators admire and want to work for because of their track record, their longevity, and especially their people. Let’s go see them, talk to them, breathe their air. Seeing is believing in any realm. In Innovation it’s especially true. Because the kind of synthesis of leadership, courage, resources, vision, and practice that it takes to grow to 4Billion in revenues does not happened by accident. The kind of people coming to the Back End of Innovation work at Innovation for a living.They KNOW it’s HARD. Rewarding to be sure, but hard. Intuit believes in the power of the individual and puts teeth into the belief. Beyond the words, implemented in action. Now that’s a job to be done!

Come Join Us at Intuit on November 19 at BEI

To learn more visit www.backendofinnovation.com. To register call: 888.670.8200 or Email: register@iirusa.com And don’t forget to get your 25% InnovationExcellence discount off the standard price, using the code BEI13IX!

Wait! Before you go.

Julie Anixter is a principle at Think Remarkable and the executive editor and co-founder of Innovation Excellence. She also serves as Chief Innovation Officer of Maga Design, a leading visual information mapping firm.The co-author of three books, she’s working on a fourth on courage and innovation. She worked with Tom Peters for five years on bringing big ideas to big audiences. Now she works with the US Military, Healthcare, Manufacturing and other high test innovation cultures that make a difference.